


Fast Times at Strangetown High

by mistersaturnine



Category: The Sims (Video Games)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-13 18:08:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18036311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistersaturnine/pseuds/mistersaturnine
Summary: The lonely Ophelia Nigmos is recently orphaned and starting not only at a new school, but in a new town. Johnny Smith has lived in Strangetown all his life, and is already well established as a cool guy. Ripp Grunt, whose only friend is Johnny, is struggling to stand out among his peers and fit in with them at the same time. As the three of them begin high school, and time passes,





	1. Ophelia's Lonely Summer

The day my parents died, I ceased to feel anything but worry. Suddenly all I could think about were the germs on my hands, on the things I touched, floating in the air. Every time I so much as sneezed, I believed I was coming down with something life-threatening. I felt I was being ridiculous, but I just couldn't seem to stop.

I had nightmares just about every night, mostly about my parents, who were buried in my aunt’s garden, coming back to life as zombies. It wasn't even the zombie part that scare me, it’s all the germs that must be on their decaying bodies. After waking up, I immediately took a shower, every time.

I worried about lots of other things too. I thought about what I could’ve done to prevent my parents’ deaths, or at least let them know how I loved them even though I acted so moody all the time. I worried about my grades, because no matter how hard I worked I only got A’s, never A+’s. I worried that my Aunt Olive was a murderer. (She did have about two dozen graves in her garden…) I worried that I was always going to be desperately lonely. I worried that I was going to die young. I worry that I was never going to find love.

So, with all this worrying, you can imagine how I felt coming to a whole new town after my parents’ death. I’d lived in Deadtree all my life, so coming to the middle-of-nowhere desert hovel called Strangetown was absolutely terrifying. My Aunt Olive, my only living relative, agreed to take me in so that I wouldn’t have to go into foster care. She never seemed to care much for me, though.

The first interaction with her that I can remember was on the day the movers brought my bed and all my toys in. “Aren’t you a little old for toys?” Aunt Olive asked. I only keep them around because they remind me of my young childhood, when my parents were around, and I was happy. Plus, I hope to hand them down to my own children one day. I didn’t feel like I could tell Aunt Olive all this, though, so all I did was roll my eyes. Then I flinched, thinking she might yell at me, but she just went to her room. As I soon learned, Aunt Olive was mostly paid to attend parties all night, so she needed to sleep during the day.

Because of her sleeping during the day, for most of that first summer of my fourteenth year, I was completely alone. Aunt Olive was asleep and I had no friends.. There was a store on the main road in town, but if you took a taxi an hour away you could find clubs and shopping and lots of other teen hangouts. I was too scared to go. What if the taxi crashed, or it ran out of gas and we were stranded in the desert? What if I went to a store and it got robbed, and then the robber shot everybody? And so on. It seemed safer to stay inside.  
My best friend that summer were my teddy bear, Juliet, and my doll family.

“I miss my parents,” I confided in Juliet one day. “They always took me with them when they went places. Now Aunt Olive sleeps all day and never takes me anywhere. She gets her groceries delivered, even. How is she so popular if she’s so antisocial?” Juliet, of course, didn’t respond. I didn’t make up a response in my head, either. I wanted to pretend that I was at least a little bit normal.

When I wasn’t talking to my toys, I read books. Aunt Olive didn’t have a TV, and her computer was in her room, and in 2004, people didn’t have multiple computers. So, it was books or nothing. Aunt Olive didn’t have any young adult books. She mostly read the classics, mysteries, and books about conspiracy theories. I discovered that I quite enjoyed the classics and mysteries, and by the end of the summer I had read almost every book on her shelves, minus the conspiracy theories.

Then it was time to start high school. Every kid is nervous when they start high school, and every kid is nervous when they start at a brand-new school. But I in particular am terrified of everything. So you might understand why, on my first day at Strangetown High, I was in hysterics.

Kids stared at me as they passed me in the hall, where I was completely lost and had no idea where my first period class was. A guy tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

I turned to look at him, and was shocked. I knew aliens lived on our planet, of course, but I’d never seen one in real life. His green skin and black, pupil-less eyes were so, well, alien. I tried not to stare by looking down at my feet, which my eyes naturally gravitated to anyway. “I don’t know where my first class is.”

“Neither do I,” he said, laughing. “Where are you supposed to be?”

“Simlish literature in room 207.”

“What a coincidence, I’m there too! Let’s stumble our way to it together. Let’s walk...this way,” he said, taking off.

I followed him, and hid behind him as he asked a senior for directions. After receiving them, we finally found the stairs and to climbed to the second floor, then found our classroom.

“Well, it was nice to meet you,” said the alien. “My name’s Johnny Smith, by the way.”

“Ophelia Nigmos.”

“Have fun today, Ophelia,” he said. Then he waved to some people in the back corner of the classroom and sat down next to them, leaving me alone once again.  
I would stay alone for several weeks following. My career at Strangetown High was not off to a good start.


	2. Johnny's Confusing Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a correction: i realized that johnny has green human eyes, not black alien ones. but i'm too lazy to go back and edit out this consistency so i suppose it's just retconned as of this chapter.
> 
> also, i decided that johnny and ripp have stuff to work out around their attraction to men because i write what i know and what i know is being bi and confused. instead of having a debate about sim gender and sexuality like i did in my head, let's just be normal and accept this at face value.

The summer of 2004 was hellish, and not just because of how stupidly hot it was. I had recently become a teenager. It was the summer between middle school and high school. I had lots of “friends” from middle school, but I didn’t feel particularly close to any of them. And I was beginning to question myself and whether the “me” that I’d been putting on for so many years was really me.

One night, I was sitting on the back porch with a couple of the guys, David Gibson and Ripp Grunt.

“I’m glad you have a pool,” said David. “It’s hot as balls out here.”

“Yeah,” I said. My parents seemed hellbent on showing off to everyone that we were living the upper-middle-class American dream. They had a large, beautiful home, a nuclear family, a white picket fence, a swimming pool, and somehow a lawn of lush green grass in the middle of the Nevada desert.

I think it was because my dad, my sister Jenny and I were alien freaks. My parents were overcompensating. But despite our alien freakishness and the other kids my dad not-so-secretly had in town, people liked us. Maybe it was just because of the money they thought we had, though. It was impossible to tell.

David, Ripp, and I stared silently up at the Strangetown stars.

“I just saw another UFO,” Ripp said. It was no secret in this town that UFOs were alien spaceships, and that aliens lived among us. I mean, duh. “It’s beautiful.” I looked up to see the silver flying saucer spinning slowly, before suddenly zooming off into the cosmos.

“I wonder if they had some poor guy in it,” David said. “I heard a rumor that they take guys and do something to ‘em that makes them come back pregnant.”

“Ew, gross!” Ripp said. I felt my face getting hot - luckily, when you have green skin, nobody can see you blush. That had been my dad’s exact job before he came to our planet. Somehow, nobody had guessed this, even though he literally still called himself “Pollination Technician #9,” with a “Smith” he’d tacked onto the end to try and fit in.

There was an awkward silence (awkward to me, at least), before Ripp changed the subject. He said in a low voice, “Did you hear about that supposed UFO crash in the middle of the desert? They said that a human woman was seen wandering away from it.”

Great, more alien talk. I slowly withdrew into myself. I stared at the sky and tried not to listen to David and Ripp’s conversation, but it was impossible not to hear them.

“Oh yeah, they said she’s been seen wandering around downtown,” David said (“downtown” being a loose word for the Road to Nowhere, which ran through the middle of town and held most of the town’s families, including mine and the Grunts’, a small shopping center, and a community swimming pool which my parents apparently thought we were too good for). “I heard she wears a really tight red dress.”

“Hot.”

“I know, right?”

It was at that moment that I looked down from the sky and saw Ripp staring me. After years of playing sports and getting in shape for them, I was more than a little fit. I could swear he was staring right at my abs. He looked up, too, and met my eyes before quickly darting his away. Then he, too, fell silent as David blathered on about girls. It was a conversation I suspected Ripp couldn’t relate to.

Of course, I wasn’t sure I could either. In 8th grade, I’d briefly dated a girl in our class named Kendal Lawson. We dated for two months before her mom found out and made Kendal break up with me. She was my first kiss, and my feelings for her were genuine, I think. So why did I find myself fantasizing about my friends sometimes? Was it possible to be gay and straight?

That night, that one single moment where Ripp and I met eyes has been cemented in my memory. Because it was the night I realized - and I think he did too - that we both had unspoken feelings for each other.

 

 

Finally, that confusing summer drew to a close, and my first day of high school was on top of me before I even realized it was approaching. I woke up at 6 am, unable to contain my nervous excitement. Nobody else was awake.

My mom got up at 6:30, and brought downstairs my then 3-year-old baby sister, Jenny. “Can you keep an eye on her real quick?” she asked me. I groaned. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her back then.

“You know, I was planning to make you a special breakfast for you first day of high school, but if you’re going to act like this….”

“Ugh, fine.” I took my sister by the hand. “Come on, let’s go play blocks or something.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure my mom couldn’t hear me. “Stupid baby.”

By 7:30, everyone was awake and fed, and there was nothing to do but sit and wait in agony for the school bus to arrive. “Don’t worry about it, son. You’ll mostly be going to class with kids you know from middle school.” Which was true. We only bused in students from Strangetown and from another, smaller town about twenty minutes away.

“Oh, I just can’t believe my baby is going off to high school!” said my mom. She was holding back tears. I didn’t appreciate then how much she held back in an attempt not to embarrass me.

When the bus finally arrived at 8am, I grudgingly accepted hugs from both of my parents (and even Jenny). “Bye,” I said, and ran up to the bus. I took my seat next to David, and looked back at my front door. My mom was crying unashamedly, and my dad had his arms around her, with a few tears of his own. I looked away and pretended not to see them.

 

 

At the front doors of Strangetown High, the students poured out of the bus. I was separated from David and Ripp. The 9 o’clock bell was about to ring, and we had our first period class together, and I had no idea where they were and no time to look for them.

In my dumb wandering around the school, trying to work up the nerve to ask an older kid where the hell room 207 was, I saw a girl who was also clearly lost, and on the verge of tears. I’d seen dozens of kids like her this morning, but something drew me to her. She turned around, and I walked up and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

She turned around and my jaw nearly dropped. This girl was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Her blond cornrows and dark skin made a striking contrast, and I could easily get lost in her green eyes that reminded me of the beautiful forests I’d seen on TV. “I don’t know where my first class is,” she said, staring at her feet, drawing me out of my thoughts.

“Hey, neither do I!” I said, laughing. “Where are you supposed to be?”

“Simlish literature in room 207.”

“What a coincidence, I’m there too! Let’s stumble our way to it together. Let’s go this way,” I said, picking a direction and following it.

With a girl to impress, I suddenly had the nerve to stop a senior and ask him for directions. He told me to make a right, take the next staircase up, and then it would be the first on the left. I thanked him, and up we went. She followed awkwardly close to me the whole time, but I didn’t mind. I thought maybe she liked me back.

When we’d arrived at our classroom, I told her my name, and she told me hers. Ophelia Nigmos. The name that I’d be doodling in my notebooks for months afterward.

“Well, have fun today, Ophelia,” I said, and went to sit down with Ripp and David in the corner. Where I immediately slammed my face down on the desk. “Have fun!?” Why didn’t I say literally anything else?

“Are you alright, man?” David asked. I groaned in response. My career at Strangetown High was not off to a good start.


	3. Ripp's Lonely AND Confusing Summer

So, I don’t really know where to start in this story, but the summer before high school, when Ophelia moved to town, seems as good a place as any.

It was one of the worst summers on record. Weather-wise, it was blazing hot, with record breaking heat waves seemingly every week. And for me personally, well, I was stuck in the house with my father and my meathead brother Tank (or at least that’s what he was called. His real name is Hans). The two of them were fucking insufferable.

My father and I never saw eye to eye on anything. He wanted us to wake up at 6am every morning and work out for the impending alien invasion that he swore was going to happen, if it hadn’t already started. I liked to sleep in. He believed that any kind of art was for “sissies.” In secret, I enjoyed photography, mostly taking pictures of the desert wildlife that wandered into our backyard. And he thought that men should only love women, and well, that summer I was beginning to suspect that I was gay, or bi, or something like that, I didn’t know.

If I did something my dad didn’t like, sometimes he’d sic his dog Tank on me. Usually Tank was just a pissant bully, but occasionally it turned into physical fighting. Actually, not even physical fighting, just Tank wailing on me until he either got bored or our dad called him off.

Did I mention that my dad hated aliens? He grumbled about our neighbors the Smiths nonstop, and we were forbidden to speak to them. My brothers and I were also kept on a very short leash, so we couldn’t really see them outside of school anyway. And yet I was best friends with Johnny Smith, who was in my grade in school.

I wasn’t the only rebel - Buck was friends with everyone, including Jenny Smith from his class. He and I were close, even though he got along okay with Tank the Hellbeast and our father - when he wasn't being completely ignored by them.

One night that summer, Buck and I were home alone. My father and Tank, who were the kind of military jerks that expected a discount everywhere, were out on some training mission or whatever the fuck. We had made popcorn and were watching a movie.

“What was mom like?” he asked me out of the blue. She’d died when Buck was three years old, and he barely knew her.

I was taken by surprise. “Uh,” I said. “She was nice.” He stared at me, hoping for more. “She kept things peaceful around here. When she was around, Dad wasn’t as mean to us. Tank was nice to me and he wasn’t a violent knucklehead.” I sighed.

“Do you know where she is now?”

“Nobody knows,” I said. I felt tears in my eyes. “She just walked out into the desert one night and went God knows where.” I turned my face away from Buck and quickly suppressed the tears. I didn’t feel like hearing a lecture from my father about crying.

“Oh,” Buck said. He sounded like he was about to cry, too.

I wrapped him up in a quick hug. “It’s okay, I’m sure she’ll come back,” I said, even though I wasn’t very sure of it at all.

 

Given all that crap about my father, does it really surprise you that I often sneaked out at night? The Smiths lived right down the road, so it was relatively easy and quick to get there on foot. There were a few nights where one of the hell demons I called my relatives would find me out of my room and lock all the doors and windows so I couldn’t get back in, but for the most part I got away with it.

That’s what I’d done the night I realized that I had a hopeless crush on Johnny. It had been a blazingly hot day, and we’d been swimming in the Smiths’ pool for a couple hours. I had always been amazed that they had not only a private pool, but a lush lawn of green grass in the middle of the desert.

David said something weird, like, “It’s hot as balls out here,” and there wasn’t really any non-weird response to that, so the three of us fell silent. Our eyes gravitated towards the brilliant, unpolluted night sky of Strangetown.

Something caught my eye. “I just saw another UFO.” It hovered just barely low enough for us to see, a stereotypical titanium flying saucer rotating slowly with slowly blinking green lights. “It’s beautiful.” I would’ve taken a photo if I didn’t know that my camera’s rendering of the night sky looked like shit.

“I wonder if they had some poor guy in it,” David said. “I heard a rumor that they take guys and do something to ‘em that makes them come back pregnant.”

“Ew, gross!” I said. I didn’t know back then that the pollination technician thing was true and David wasn’t just fucking with me.

There was a long and uncomfortable silence. Johnny was staring up at the sky, avoiding eye contact like a disease. I tried to change the subject. “Did you hear about that supposed UFO crash in the desert? They said that a living human woman was seen wandering away from it.” Shit! More alien talk! Why don’t you just shove your whole entire foot in your mouth, Rippert?

“Oh yeah,” David said. “They said she’s been seen wandering around downtown. I heard she wears a really tight red dress.”

“Hot,” I said, because I was an embarrassingly horny teenage boy. But when I said it, I was really kind of staring at Johnny. After his years of soccer and swimming, he was a bit more muscular than the average teenage boy. But it wasn’t just that, everything about him was...beautiful. His face, his hair, his body, the way he could make friends with just about anybody, the way he was able to crack a joke in any situation….And in that moment I realized that I really was attracted to men, specifically to Johnny.

Just as I made this observation, Johnny made eye contact with me. I quickly looked away in shame. Could he read my mind? Did he know?

David was droning on about something I don’t care about or remember, and all I could think about was how deep the hole was that I wanted to crawl into.

When I sneaked back into the house and finally curled up in bed, I was still thinking about that moment when Johnny and I had made eye contact. I remembered his girlfriend that he’d broken up with only two months ago. I started tearing up again, and it made me angry with myself. Of course he wouldn’t like me back! I was so fucking stupid! Or so I thought.

 

At the end of that dreadful summer, my first day of high school came. I was not looking forward to once again sharing a school with my older brother Tank after a year of freedom from him during the day.

The day didn’t go very well from the start. I almost missed the bus sleeping in, and had to scramble to get my shit together after waking up to my dad’s best drill sergeant yell. When I stepped onto the bus, Tank mercifully already had a seat, sandwiched in between two of his dreadful friends. Johnny was sitting to the right of David, and patted the seat to the left of him. I was just thankful that my nightmares of not having a seat on the bus didn’t come true.

The three of us barely said anything on that bus ride. I guess we were all too nervous.

When we pulled up at the school, we were caught up in a swarm of other clueless freshmen, and were separated by the crowd. We each had separate classes anyway. Mine was geometry in room 108.

Of course I got lost. What else could be expected of me? I stumbled around for ages before I finally found 107. And by then I was late. This continued for every single class I had that day. I don’t know why I didn’t just ask for directions - I’ve hardly ever been shy. I was too stubborn, I guess.

At least there were some good sides of that day. I wasn’t a complete loser - I sat with Johnny and some other guys at lunch.

“I met the most amazing girl this morning,” Johnny said. “I barely talked to her, but she’s so cute. I think I might have the tiniest crush on her.”

Oh great, I thought. He really doesn’t have feelings for me.

“Shit! There she is now.” I looked over at the girl walking past and wow, I suddenly understood what he was talking about. She really was pretty, and I admired her mismatched clothing style. But she looked on the edge of tears. A new girl in a small town, and nowhere to sit in the cafeteria on her first day of high school.

I wish I had invited her to sit with us. I guess I was just a jerk back then.


End file.
